Fifteen people have been trapped in an illegal rat-hole mine in East Jaintia Hills in Meghalaya since December 13, 2018.

Three helmets are all that have been found so far. Authorities were callous enough to presume the miners dead on the very day of the accident. The district administration wrote to the National Disaster Response Force on December 13 asking for help in recovering the “dead bodies”.

But as citizens, we are all equally responsible for a pervasive national culture of violence, exploitation and abuse of power. Abhineet Mishra delivers the shock to our conscience that is long overdue.